Y'all know z/VM installs from DVD, right? That started about when the z800 came out. It's pretty easy, too. The second link below has the steps, and there aren't many. Don't know how the rumor started that z/VM is difficult. Quite simply it ain't. Maybe mainframers are always supposed to say it's difficult then over-deliver? :-)
http://www.vm.ibm.com/install/ http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg246311.html To reiterate, about 1,700 mainframe shops have already done this (installed Linux, almost all under z/VM). That's very fast adoption for something that's about 6 years old. Re: Hacking a driver and recompiling the kernel, my response was to the implication that I didn't know what I was talking about. On this occasion anyway, I do. :-) Those tasks are not required to run Linux, especially Linux on z. But someone challenged my geekness, so, you know... :-) Of course I recognize that there are companies that "don't run Linux." Allegedly -- there are plenty of companies that do, but the CIO doesn't know about it. That's perfectly legal. Linux is free open source. However, the number of companies that truly don't run Linux is diminishing rapidly as Linux's marketshare increases. IDC pegs Linux server unit marketshare at 28.3% in 2004 (latest year I could find), and their forecast is 37.6% for 2008. The share of companies running one or more Linux servers is probably higher than these numbers. Gartner published a survey earlier this year which suggested that Linux -- including mainframe Linux -- is the most popular destination OS for database migrations. (z/OS is also a popular destination.) Those marketshare statistics have to be coming from somewhere. To think Linux isn't popular (and getting moreso) just doesn't make sense. My general observation is that the Linux market is bifurcated, but that's changing quickly. Originally it was very small installations, then it hit big business. Now it's spreading into the medium-sized businesses, filling in the middle. The U.S. may be slightly behind the rest of the world in Linux adoption if I had to guess -- but only slightly. Linux is extremely popular at universities and colleges worldwide. - - - - - Timothy F. Sipples Consulting Enterprise Software Architect, z9/zSeries IBM Japan, Ltd. E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
